Real Estate Marketing Blog

Website Personality

Ever get the feeling that you website is being used for its rich information and then the buyer or seller contracts with the agent on the street?

Even though NAR research shows that 77 % of Americans used the Internet to search for homes in 2005. I wouldn't take that to mean that they bought because of their online use.The same survey also found that 8 out of 10 buyers who used the Internet to find a home, used an agent to help complete the transaction.

My question is how many of those 8 of 10 buyers bought from the agent or brokerage who provided the Internet data? My experience answers with as "not much" as you all would like. The reason is poor lead capture and follow up.

A September 2006 survey of consumers by Discover Small Business Watch found that traditional real estate agents did well with home buyers, and exceedingly well with home sellers.

I ask how can that be when we onliners are so sophisticated with our websites and technology?

Trust, Experience, and Referrals Matter Most

You are up against personal factors like trust, experience and a personal referral:

• 47 % said they would choose someone they “know and trust” over other qualities when they sell their homes.
• Experience Matters; A real estate agent’s sales record was the second-most influential factor with 16 %, while a referral was third with 11 %.

The survey shows that people selling their homes see much more value in having personal help when seeking buyers. 61 % of home sellers said they would prefer the services of an agent versus only 4 percent who said they would prefer an online service to help sell their homes.

From this I can only ask what is an online service defined as? Many traditional Realtors do have an online presence? The question is inferring a diferrence. Perhaps it is talking of the discounters like Zip, or classified ad type sites like forsalebyowner.com?

However, the survey does seem to make the suggestion that the faster you get to being human with a prospect, the faster you will create more sales. Maybe those old sales trainings that nothing happens until you are Belly to Belly have merit. Its also why I implore Realtors to use forced opt-in for their IDX VOW Real Estate sites.

This is why in my opinion a blog can help(or hurt) you. A blog can make it so your reader feels they know you and your business. It gives the reader the chance to warm up to your personality or lack thereof.

It gives the reader a chance to know how business minded you are. Or how ditzy you are. So be careful.

You might make your ole Econ Professor proud as you belt numbers and statistical analysis. All showing why the market is behaving this way or that.

But do your buyers want to buy from any of your Profs from College? Well maybe that one guy.

We all had that one Professor who seemed to break the rules of teaching. Yet, somehow we all remember his name and the way he made an important point.

Be that fun Teacher in your blog.

Otherwise, your buyer might imagine having to get into that boring Econ Teacher's car to show them property! And you are that boring teacher :-( Eee Gad!

And be careful of getting too fun. Pictures of your latest night out with the gals, or your ten cats might be a little too ditzy for most. Especially, if your clients are mostly men.

Other interesting facts:

• “People buying a home do more research online than people selling a home,” said Sastry Rachakonda, director, Discover Business Card.
• “People selling a home aren’t looking for information necessarily, they are looking for buyers, and getting them buyers is what they expect from real estate agents,” he concluded.

(This article was inspired from a piece at the Red Herring)

Other Industries Teach Us

I have always used other industry data to help lead us in dominating in the real estate and mortgage industry which comprises most of our client websites. By looking at other markets we can take inferences that lead us to understand new opportunities and solidify hunches.

A new study conducted by Compete Inc. for Yahoo Search Marketing concluded that consumers reached with search are attractive for financial services companies since they are both wealthy and of strong credit quality.

Now, this isn't exactly your direct client, but they share some similarity for sure. The finance industry is pretty closely related to real estate sales, and especially Mortgage Brokering.

"A third of people who are searching on brand terms are looking to establish a new relationship or expand their existing relationship" with financial service providers, said Mike Bailey, managing director of financial services at Compete, Boston.

The study found that 31% of all searchers online are looking for loans.

Now what I find interesting is that however, 80 % of the prospects researching a bank are competitor's customers. 

"From a search marketer's perspective, when I establish a portfolio of terms to put a listing on, I want to make sure I have coverage across general terms, specific terms and brand terms to reach all of the consumers investigating the products that I'm marketing," said Justin Merickel, director of the finance category at Yahoo Search Marketing, Sunnyvale, CA.

This is exactly the approach that we at Spider Juice Technologies use to capture more brand and lead generation for our Realtor and Mortgage clients.

Another interesting phenomenon is that Credit card prospects find it more convenient to apply online -- 83 % via the Web, 5 % through the bank branch and the rest by telephone.

But of those consumers who research their checking, savings and loan options online, one-third to one-half of those who open accounts do so at in-person channels. For example, 56 percent of checking account openings resulting from search were consummated at a branch versus 43 percent online. For savings accounts it was 38 percent in a branch, 60 percent online and the rest on the phone. For loans, the branch's share was 36 percent, the Internet's 42 percent and the phone's 22 percent.

This follows one of our Search Marketing Truths: "People research online and buy offline" . This is why I have argued over and over again that your website must serve one master, that is to capture online searchers names and personal information. All the branding and loyalty building is done after the capture.

Thanks to DMNews.com for much of the information for this post.

Who is Your Marketplace?

NAR just posted their survery of 2005 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers. Order it at 800/874-6500 for cheap.

Here are some of the more obvious numbers:

• 9 out of 10 home buyers use a real estate agent in the search process
• 71% of buyers use a yard sign

When asked where they first learned about the home purchased, 24% of buyers identified the Internet, up strongly from 15% in 2004 and only 2% in 1997. Although most buyers use an agent to complete the transaction, 36 first learn about the home they buy from a real estate agent and 15% from yard signs; five other categories were 7% or less.

NAR President Thomas M. Stevens from Vienna, Va., said “Buyers who use the Internet in searching for a home are more likely to use a real estate agent than non-Internet users, and consumers rely on professionals to provide context, negotiate the transaction and help with the paperwork,” said Stevens, senior vice president of NRT Inc.

More info on FSBO's is that 13% of sellers conducted transactions without the assistance of a real estate professional in 2005 (down from 18% in 1997), and 39% of those FSBO transactions were “closely held” between parties who knew each other in advance, up from 32% in 2004.

This is great sales fodder: The median home price for sellers who use an agent is 16.0% higher than a home sold directly by an owner.

“The housing market today contrasts sharply with predictions a decade ago that the Internet would ‘disintermediate’ real estate agents, including speculation that NAR membership would fall in half. In reality, it’s grown dramatically – selling real estate is not like selling a book or buying an airline ticket,” he said. Comment:True but the true bastardization of Realtor data is just now coming to fruition.

Realtor.com was the most popular Internet resource, used by 54% of buyers, followed by multiple listing service (MLS) Web sites, 50%, real estate company sites, 38%, real estate agent Web sites, 31%, and local newspaper sites, 15%; other categories were smaller.

61% of all transactions was with Married couples.
21% of homes from Single women.
9%.of homes from single men.
Unmarried couples were 7% of the sales.

Check this one out: The typical buyer visits 9 homes
They take 8 weeks to buy a home within 12 miles from their previous residence.
The typical seller placed their home on the market for 4 weeks afte rhaving lived there for for six years. They have owned 3 homes previously within 15 miles to their new residence.

In finding a real estate professional, 44% of buyers were referred by a friend, neighbor or relative, 11% used an agent from a previous transaction,
7% found an agent on the Internet,
7% met at an open house and
6% saw contact information on a “for sale” sign.

WOW! that explains all those leads and only a small conversion to sale. I just heard today that 1 in 75 people in California is a Real Estate Agent. That is why there is only 6 sides per agent according to another NAR study. Thus, if you are going to market online, you need to convert and swoon your leads to become loyal.

The most important factor in choosing an agent: 41% of homebuyers said. 24% said knowledge of the neighborhood.

Satisfaction with real estate agents is very high, with 85% of buyers saying they were likely to use the agent again. This smacks in conflict with non NAr studies that rate Real Estate agents at the bottom of most professions. This calls into question the validity of NAR's study.

As far as sellers go: 43% chose agents based on a referral by a friend, neighbor or relative,  28% were previous clients.

57%  again said reputation was the most important factor in selecting an agent

94% of buyers and sellers believe their home purchase is a good financial investment. 66% use the equity from their previous home for a downpayment on a new home.

Why buy in a given location? 68% said it is close to a job or school, 43% said close to family/friends, & 36% said the school district itself.

This report offers many insites into how you can capture business offline and online.

Predictions for Online Real Estate 2006

Get the insider track on 2006
....online real estate marketing predictions

Happy New Year! everyone. I just posted my predictions for the new year. Check it out.

Internet Real Estate Sales

The California Association of Realtors released its "2005 Use of Technology Survey" Tuesday during the "Tech Tuesday" opening session of their Centennial Realtor Expo in San Diego. The survey found that 33 percent of realtors' business is coming from the Internet.

While just 33 percent of their business comes from the Internet, 67 percent of realtors reported that the Internet extremely or very important in the marketing and promotion of their business and 61 percent of realtors post listings to their own Web site. Other results of the "2005 Use of Technology Survey" found that 90 percent of realtors have a high-speed Internet connection at home, an increase from 82 percent a year ago and 71 percent in 2003; and 46 percent of realtors use e-mail as their primary form of communication with their client.

Real Estate Advertising

Borrell And Associates recently released their report on Online Real Estate Advertising.

The report details $11.4 billion in real estate advertising and focuses on this year's projected $1.8 billion in online media spending. It found out that the search engines are tapping local agents and real estate brokerage firms to the tune of more than $500 million and are rapidly growing share. Local agents and brokers now account for 23 percent of all Paid Search listings, bidding an average of more than $1 per click on local keywords.

While overall real estate advertising flattens, the online portion will grow 55 percent this year. Online is poised to overtake the longtime leader in this category -- newspapers -- by 2009. By year's end, online spending will hit $1.8 billion, garnering a 15.7 percent share of the $11.4 billion real estate advertising market. Lead generation and paid search have emerged as the leading forms of advertising, with agents and brokers paying an average of more than $1 per click and $10 per lead.

They released a 27-page report offers 12 charts and graphs The cost is very reasonable <insert sarcasm> at $995. An executive summary is available free however.

From real estate lead to closed sale

A recently completed report on home sellers and home buyers(Hebert Research for HouseValues Inc.), shows that home sellers take on average 9.3 months from the time they begin researching until they sell.

It takes home buyers 16.7 months, on average, to research and buy their next home. 

The study aslo found that:

• First-time home buyers invest an average of 20.5 months in the entire home-buying process, the study also found.
• Before even thinking about selling, consumers can take up to four years subconsciously collecting experiences related to their home, including current and future desired requirements, features and amenities. These experiences compound to bring the home sale to the forefront of consciousness, triggering an active research phase.
• Once the research phase has been initiated, it takes sellers an average of 9.3 months to sell – 5.5 months in a pre-research phase, 1.4 months for the active research phase, and 2.4 months for the active selling phase.
• The majority of sellers – 52.1 percent – take one day to select an agent.
• Buyers, like sellers, often take up to four years collecting experiences related to their current home, and potential future needs.
• It takes buyers nearly a year and a half – 16.4 months on average – to buy from the time they begin thinking about a purchase.
• Once the research phase for buyers has been initiated, it takes an average of 16.7 months to buy – 7.1 months in the pre-research phase, 5.5 months in the active research phase, and 4.1 months in the active buying phase.
• Forty-four percent of buyers take more than six months thinking about desirable homes and neighborhoods before actually searching for listings. The average buyer then spends more than four months searching for homes.
• First-time buyers take an average of 20.5 months on the entire home-buying process.
• 61.8 percent of buyers select their real estate agent within just one to three days.

  The survey also explored the reasons why consumers choose their real estate agent:

• Consumers use agents for three main reasons: paperwork/legal work; negotiations; and access to listings.

• Buyers and sellers tend to choose an agent based on experience, honesty and past relationships.

These numbers vary greatly from other studies say such as in California which found that :

• Internet buyers spent an average of 5.8 weeks considering buying a home before contacting a Realtor®, nearly three times more than traditional buyers, who spent 2.1 weeks in this stage of the homebuying process.
• Internet buyers spend 4.7 weeks investigating homes, and neighborhoods, before contacting an agent, while traditional buyers spent 1.6 weeks.
• Internet buyers took only two weeks before selecting a home ,while traditional buyers took seven weeks.
• Because the Internet allows buyers to preview homes, a typical Internet buyer only viewed 6.2 homes with their agent, while traditional buyers visited 14.5 homes.
• Nine out of ten Internet buyers found their agents through an online real estate listing site; 60% found their agent through Internet search engines such as Yahoo! or Google. (note I am not sure that google is a real estate searchengine) 12% used agents they had worked with previously. (I would take this to mean that the online exposure buys you loyalty)
• Traditional buyers found their agents through for-sale signs (47 percent). Half (47 percent) found their agents through agent advertising. One quarter (26 percent) of agents were referred by friends and family, and 19 percent had a previous transaction with their agent.
• Internet buyers typically interviewed only one agent (71 percent) -- the first one who responded to them. Traditional buyers interviewed a median of three agents, and 37 percent interviewed four or more agents.
• A whopping 47 percent of Internet buyers said they selected their agent because of responsiveness, while only 42 percent of traditional buyers chose their agent for that reason. So half will pick you just for showing up.
• 22 percent of Internet buyers and 21 percent of traditional buyers choosing agents they felt would be the most aggressive on their behalf.
• Internet buyers are more likely to be first-time buyers, they are younger, wealthier, better educated and more likely married.
• All first-time buyers typically spent four weeks considering buying a home and four weeks investigating homes for sale before contacting a Realtor. They then spent three weeks previewing eight homes with their Realtor.
• All repeat buyers spent three weeks considering buying a home, and only two weeks investigating homes for sale on their own. They spent five weeks previewing ten homes with their Realtor.

"The Internet is enabling consumers to research and gather information well in advance of actually buying or selling," said Ian Morris, HouseValues CEO. "This research shows that real estate agents are critical to the transaction, but are chosen late in the decision-making process, and very quickly. The takeaway for real estate professionals is to be first, fast and frequent in their communication with consumers, and that often means delivering value and information many months in advance of an expected transaction."

Ian Morris says 74 percent of consumers now begin their home research online, yet only 10 percent of real estate marketing budgets have followed them there

Comments:

Being able to generate leads is not enough. Generating email campaigns that last overtime that shares your personality and stacks value on top of value will win over prospects and keep you top of mind when it comes time to choose. And according to the data they choose quick. Your job is to get out in front of the decision process early. You do this by capturing their name and courting and segmenting them until they are ready to move your relationship to the next level.

Real Estate News Paper Online Advertising

Or:Real Estate MLS gone.. again

Inman recently included a piece that alerted me to a new vortal that inlcudes newspapers' property listings. The site is called Homescape.com, a division of Classified Ventures. They have mirrored sites at HomeHunter.com and NewHomeNetwork.com.

Why isn't there alarm bells and prophesies of Armageddon going off in the Realtor world?

This site is aggregating "their" listings. We just talked about this at Real Estate MLS gone.

If you were to do a search for Sacramento homes, you would find the on line classifieds feed from the Sacramento Bee.

I did find that at least for Sacramento, the MLS listings that the newspaper-on line mls advertising was not included in the feed.

I guess if I were a Realtor, I could be upset for a few reasons.

One. Why don't they include the MLS listings? Two. And more disconcerning. Is this the beginning of the the big push to replace the MLS sharing that has been the mainstay and foundation of "Realty" Marketing as we know it. Three. Does the Realtor need another industry to compete for on line positioning? Especially when the Realtor community subsidizes many of these media outlets existence?

Real Estate MLS gone

According to recent reports by Borrell & Associates, real-estate brokers' and agents' websites are losing online market share of the real estate listings marketplace. They report that certain keyword real-estate searches have recently began to ignore most of the Realtor Websites in the search engines.

According to Borrell, real-estate agents' websites now populate Google's top 10 results only 9% of the time, vs. 29% only a year ago.

Newspaper real-estate sites now get in the top 10 about 12% of the time, vs. 16% a year ago.

To quote the popular song...."isn't it ironic"?

Realtor offices and agents pay their local and national Board of Realtors, Department of Real Estate and National Association of Realtors to protect them. Yet these lobbyists only serve to create the napster affect thru the IDX and VOW initiatives.

Yet, in many of the cases, the Newspaper sites that are beating the pants off the Realtor in search engine referrals, are getting the data from their friendly, local Realtor.

Does anyone in the Realtor community care that your "advocates" are giving your business away?

OK so here is the bad news. The above mentioned report is from a year ago (Dec, 2003). And the search engine environment has only gotten tougher as Google seems to have given way to relevancy and would rather you spend your money on their ADWords.

In September of this year Borrell released a report called:

2004 ANALYSIS:  ONLINE REAL ESTATE ADVERTISING COMES OF AGE. A superheated home-sales market has masked some subtle shifts in the $11.5 billion Real Estate advertising category.  Homes are selling faster than agents can advertise them, and a new, less expensive way of reaching home buyers has emerged in the form of MLS-based Web sites.  Meanwhile, an erosion of traditional media advertising -- particularly for newspapers --  has been occurring.  In 1997, newspapers received $755 per home sold in advertising revenues; today it's $605.   This report examines the shift and and provides additional insights from surveys with classified advertising, online managers, and MLS executives. 

Google Yellow Pages

I recently posited that as the engines move to be more profitable, they are becoming more like the yellow pages than a legitimate search vehicle.

Interestingly Google just purchased Real Pages.com. More of the story here.

Why would Google purchase a yellow page type business directory? There is big dollars in local search. According to a recent mediapost email:

The Yellow Pages are a $26 billion global industry. According to The Kelsey Group, 22 million small- and medium-sized businesses spend 46 percent of their advertising budgets on Yellow Pages marketing, and put only 3 percent into search engine keywords. In addition, only 30 percent of small- and medium-sized businesses have a Web site. ...Verizon SuperPages.com, which has been selling online directory listings since 1996, this year redesigned its Web site and business model to include pay-per-click listings.

Resources
Yellow Pages are Dead